Like many college students, Lorilin Braymer, Rachel Cannon and Lauren Bailey Pollard switched their majors in college and tested the waters to see what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. Although all three University alumnae are successfully pursuing careers in their dream jobs, they did not have everything figured out when they were 18 years old. While each of them have individual career experiences, they do have one thing in common: they pursued a career in what they loved.
Lorilin Braymer
During her five years as a University student and cheerleader, owning a yoglates studio and becoming a fitness instructor was not on Lorilin Braymer’s radar.
Like many college students, Braymer found herself switching majors. She started with elementary education, but after realizing she did not want to teach children, she ended up graduating from the University in five years with a degree in general studies with an emphasis in public relations and journalism.
“I think that at 18 everybody as a whole [is] way too young to make those life decisions,” Braymer said.
In 1985, Braymer decided to pursue a career in physical fitness. She became a certified fitness instructor, teaching different workout classes. Braymerinstructed for a few years, but she said she eventually became bored.
After having her third child and trying to work out again, Braymer attempted to leave the fitness industry in 1996. She was drawn back in when one of her friends introduced her to the new yoglates workout in 2000, and after a few months of the classes, she started teaching yoglates, Braymer said. She now owns Yoglates II on Perkins Road.
“Early on in my life, yes, while I pursued fitness as a profession, it seemed to come very naturally,” Braymer said. “But as I got older, each time I thought I was ready to walk away from it, it kept following me. That’s when I realized my first real love and interest in fitness had evolved into a vocation.”
Braymer said her goal as a fitness instructor and business owner is to help the members of her studio meet their own goals. Both Yoglates II locations work with athletes of all levels, whether high school, college or professional. She also works with helping people get off medications, such as blood pressure medications.
Braymer said her advice for college students is to pursue what they love, and success will follow.
“Success isn’t defined exclusively by how much money you make,” Braymer said. “To truly be successful means you’re happy doing what you’re doing. Unfortunately, we don’t emphasize this enough in our society.”
Rachel Cannon
While Rachel Cannon knew at age 15 she wanted to be an interior designer, she did not always stick to her gut instinct.
When she began her first semester at the University, Cannon was majoring in pre-med. She then changed her major to graphic design and spent the next two and a half years in college pursuing this major. In her third year, Cannon took an elective class on the history of interior design and said she knew then that was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
“I went home and told my parents in the middle of the third year I was changing my major,” Cannon said. “It was going to be a year wait because I had to change and then go through selective admissions to get into interior design. There was no guarantee I was going to get in, but [my parents] were very encouraging. I believe what my dad said was, ‘it’s not a race’.”
Cannon was accepted into the design school and got her degree in interior design. She worked in a design firm for a few years, but the 2008 recession hit the design business hard. Cannon lost her job in 2009. She free-lanced for a little while, but then opened her own design firm, Rachel Cannon Limited Interiors, in the same year.
The first three years of her business, Cannon said she felt like she was in the trenches, learning how to be a business owner and learning how to work within a new economy. Now, a few years later, Cannon has been published nationally and has completed her first show house.
Cannon’s not stopping there, though.
“I’ve been thinking about developing a fabric and wallpaper line for a while, and that’s in the works. I’ve actually got strikes offs of some of the patterns. I want a furniture line, a lighting line, a fabric line and a rug line,” she said.
Cannon’s advice for college students is to take her dad’s advice: finishing college is not a race.
“In the big picture of your life, [these] years are really nothing compared to what you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing,” Cannon said. “Do what you can do to get where you need to be in life.”
Lauren Bailey Pollard
Lauren Bailey Pollard had one thing in common when she started at the University and when she graduated: she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, much less that she would end up owning her own fashion boutique.
In her first few years of college, Pollard was undecided in her major until she finished all of her core classes and had to declare one. She majored in business and minored in fashion merchandising. She said she majored in business because she enjoyed the classes and they came naturally to her, but she minored in fashion merchandising simply because she loved fashion.
“I took fashion classes not because I planned to get a degree in it, I just have always have loved fashion,” Pollard said. “I enjoyed taking them as an elective and I kept taking them.”
When she graduated, Pollard thought about moving to New York to learn about the fashion industry, but decided to move to New Orleans instead. There, Pollard took a management position at a fashion boutique with her boss and soon-to-be business partner.
“I really wanted to learn more about the buying aspects of it because that intrigued me with going to market and doing the buying. I wanted to go on all the buying trips. From then I just kept wanting to learn more about the fashion industry. I wasn’t really sure that I was going to have a store, that was never my goal as much as I wanted to be in the industry,” she said.
After Hurricane Katrina, Pollard moved back to Baton Rouge and started a fashion boutique with her business partner. She then bought her partner out and changed the boutique’s name to Edit by LBP. In the 11 years since she has opened her boutique, she has made close relationships with many of her clients and even met her husband in her boutique.
“You never know,” Pollard said. “I think the thing is if you do what you love, like I took those fashion classes purely because I enjoyed them, you end up being good at them. It keeps evolving, and now I’ve had my store for over 11 years and I love it just as much today as I did when I started.”
Pollard plans to keep building the store’s customer service,bringing new and exciting fashion pieces to her clients and ultimately to achieving a good balance between work life and home life. Her advice to college students is to pursue what they love.
“Do what you love, even as far as a major and a job, even if it doesn’t always make sense to you,” Pollard said. “My minoring in fashion was purely just because I liked it. We have a successful business, but it’s because I do what I love.”